English 9 Class Notes
Objectives: Freshmen 1) reviewed question answering strategies, and 2) read independently for a sustained period.
Sixth period, we finished the quarter with sobering reminders of the importance of doing your best work on every reading and other assignments. You collected your work and I reviewed with you again the rubric for creating quality, detailed evaluative and analytical answers to questions your assigned for homework. I’ve posted the rubric again here so there are no mistakes or misunderstandings.
- Four (4) points for complete and conscious answers with sufficient evidence, insightful and thorough explanations if necessary, and no serious or obvious conventions errors.
- Three (3) points for complete and correct answers with adequate evidence, requisite explanations if necessary, and/or the occasional conventions error.
- Two (2) points for passable answers with inadequate or irrelevant evidence, little explanation, and/or obvious conventions error.
- One (1) point for an incomplete or spare answers with no or irrelevant evidence and insufficient explanation, and serious conventions errors.
I handed out your grades as they’ll appear on your progress reports. Many of you have significant work to do to improve; mostly, your needed improvements involve nothing more than being attentive to, careful with, and thorough in your approach to completing your assignments.
For a kick, and because I didn’t want to start anything on the last day of our first ten weeks together, we screened an ancient production of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-tale Heart”. We briefly clarified points of the narrative, touched on symbols, and compared its motifs to that of “The Cask of Amontillado”.
You closed the day with some independent reading as I struggled to input your grades.
Have great break. Make good decisions. And don’t worry about too much about your grade. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to improve it if you work hard and smart.